Two Year Old Geldings and Teenage Boys

We had a buyer come look at Stormy today. It went pretty well, I think. I really do like this person as a horsewoman—for our horse or someone else’s horse. She’s being very smart and very long-range in her thinking, which I like. Which also means she’s being careful and thoughtful in her processes, so I have no idea whether it’s a match or not. She seemed quite pleasantly surprised at how “big” Stormy’s gaits really are—that stocky build fools you, and she was pretty impressed by how much leg he takes up with his giant barrel body and how much impulsion he has on those short legs. Happy surprise for her! She also liked his brain—it’s pretty obvious when he’s thinking and working out what you want,and she's a thinking horsewoman who wants a thinkng horse. So I don’t think she saw anything not to like, but after many years of training off-the-track thoroughbreds and young horses, she is at an age where she's decided she's about to buy her last new horse, and she’s being very careful. But it went as well as it could have, and we’ll just see.

Sherman was the real surprise hit of the day! He’s been a little shit for the last couple of weeks—- he had a growth spurt, timed with a reduction in work as we’ve been both busy and on Stormy’s case. The combination has, in the past, proven to produce a bratty little shit horse, and this time has been no exception. So he’s high on my list for work this week. Brought him in, and he was a SHIT for grooming—I was grooming with a brush in one hand, and a crop in the other he was so bad— paw, paw, whack! Nip, nip, whack! And so on. When I took the halter off to put his bridle on, he lurched forward and tried to run over me. “That’s it!” I said, “I’m going to work your ass off!”

So we went to the big ring and Pat lunged him for a while, and he pulled his usual round of silly escapades that follow a break in training— full headstand bucks at the crupper while trotting (and while cantering, without breaking stride—- he’s talented) non-stop, blasting through “Whoa!” and other 2-year old nonsense. He finally settled down into a working routine, but he had that teenage hands-on-hip, gum-smacking sneer about his body language—he was all but screaming, “I’m so bored with this routine; what is it with you old ladies that you don’t get how over this I am?”

So, Pat changed the subject. She went ahead and put the second lunge line on him, and lunged him a bit that way. Immediate change in demeanor. He was thinking. He was quiet, he was respectful. He was interested in the process. Totally what happens to teenage boy when you give him something interesting to think about… he stops breaking street lights and starts fixing car engines…

Then, we stepped behind him and just, viola, began long-lining. We’ve taken steps in this direction before, but with his “Wahoo!” behavior each time he’s had time off, we were thinking it’d be three or four sessions in this week before we got to this. But no, he just walked off like he’s been doing it all his life. “Walk on. Whoa. Gitup.” --all totally responded to, all sweet as pie. Completely different horse from both the biting, charging shit from before the work and the wild, bucking thing during the early work. And he hadn’t even broken a sweat at this point, so it’s not that he was tired out…

So, he was so good, we left the ring. Just marched out, around the garden, down the lane to the barn, up the lane to the house, back down to the barn and done. He was amazing. Other than a momentary desire to chase the chickens (he could be a cow pony!), he was perfect, like he’s been doing it all his life. Stood like a gentleman in the cross ties for un-tacking, walked out to pasture like a pro.

Little shit. My life with Sherman is going to be all about keeping him occupied and interested or else he’s going to get me in deep trouble…